April 14, 2006

Final Stats

BROWNWOOD, Texas - Hardin-Simmons' baseball team jumped out early and piled on in a, 14-4, American Southwest Conference win over Howard Payne, Friday afternoon at Dan Shepard Park in Brownwood.

The Cowboys scored four runs in the first inning, all coming in the unearned variety and all with two outs. Blake Koch reached with one out and moved to second on a Brad Coleman single. Danny Ruth reached on an error and Michael Simpson and Taylor Lamar both came up with two-out two-RBI singles. Tre' Sellari had a sacrifice fly in the second inning to score Trevor Bunte.

Howard Payne helped the Cowboys out again in the sixth as the Cowboys scored five runs on only one hit. Bunte and Ryan Stepp led off with back-to-back walks. Blake Koch reached on a bunt single and then Sellari and Brad Coleman each walked with the bases loaded for RBIs. The Cowboys then scored two runs on a throwing error and added the fifth run on a wild pitch. The Cowboys led 10-0 at that point.

HPU broke up the shutout in the sixth on a Kasey Black solo home run. Jose Sierra had an RBI single in the seventh to make it 10-2. HSU responded with two runs in the eighth. Simpson had an RBI single and Lamar had a sacrifice fly. HPU scored two runs in the eighth and HSU had two in the ninth on RBI doubles by Sellari and Koch.

Kurtis Lay was solid on the mound for the Cowboys. He allowed just two earned runs in seven and one-third innings of work and struck out 10 batters to move to 5-4 on the season.

Coleman and Simpson had three hits each and Sellari, Lamar and Simpson drove in three runs each for HSU.

The Cowboys improved to 21-13 on the season and 11-5 in the ASC West. The Cowboys are in a tie for first place in the ASC West with Texas Lutheran and Concordia-Austin. The Cowboys can take sole possession of first with a pair of wins on Saturday and now control their own destiny as far as winning the ASC West and earning the right to host the ASC Tournament.

Howard Payne fell to 16-18 overall and 9-7 in league play. The two teams play a 1 p.m. doubleheader on Saturday in Brownwood.